Page 74 of Hateful
I bite my lip and force myself to look over at Beck and Jasper.
Jasper looks calm. He takes a second too long to rearrange his expression into one of surprise while Beck, on the other hand, looks like his eyes may start popping out of his head at any minute.
“Now, our Alexis here—”
“Alex!” I hiss again, my attention snapping back to the dean. Once again, I’m just ignored.
“—has just been through quite the ordeal, so let’s give her some room to breathe, hm?” He looks down at me. His forced smile has frozen onto his face, and when he speaks to me now, it’s through gritted teeth. “Go get yourselfcleaned up. And then come right back here.”
I nod, feeling numb; the dean lifts his hand off my shoulder. I see Rafael pushing his way through the crowd to get to me, and I rush to him gratefully.
“Let’s go,” Rafael mutters under his breath as he grabs me by the elbow. “Cat’s out of the bag now, huh? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, but as I glance over my shoulder and meet Headmistress Robin’s smiling gaze, I think I have a good guess.
* * *
I knowit’s not my blood, but the sight of it washing down the shower drain doesn’t leave me any less unnerved. I scrub myself clean as well as I can—maybe too well. By the time I step out of the shower my skin is stinging.
Even then, I move slowly, like I’m trapped in slowly solidifying amber. I am a creature that no longer belong here. That never belonged here.
And now everyone knows.
Maybe if I go slowly I can avoid the crowd of angry parents down by the entrance.
My head is spinning, my heart still beating as if the wolves in the forest never stopped attacking us. Everything that’s happened since Heath and I arrived back on the doorstep to the school doesn’t feel like it was real. Not at all.
I’ve gone from thinking I’ve been found out, to believing I was safe, to suddenly … suddenly … what?
To suddenly being betrayed. And by none other than the woman who swore to protect me.
Once again, that pit settles like lead in my stomach. I knew when I gaveHeadmistressRobin that folder, that something didn’t feel right.
I just didn’t imagine it was because of this. Because she was going to use it against me.
Just like everyone else since I’ve arrived here at Bleakwood, she somehow found a way to usemeagainst myself.
The sight of my fogged-up body in the mirror makes me pause on my way to getting dressed. The steam has made my figure little more than an hourglass shaped blob contrasting against the dark color of the bathroom walls.
Maybe it was always destined to be this way.
Even when I can’t make out the exact shape of each curve of my body, it’s pretty clear my little charade wasn’t going to be able to last much longer. Not when everything I’ve tried—starving myself, excessive exercise, chest binding, and sheer power of will—has been unable to stop the inevitable from arriving.
Because I am unmistakably a girl.
I stop for one second, closing my eyes and leaning forward to rest my forehead against the mirror. I focus on the coldness of the glass. On the heat of the steam. The feel of wet tile beneath my bare feet.
And yet, as much as I try to ground myself, I still feel as if my whole world is spinning—as if, at any second, I am going to collapse into a bottomless pit from which I’ll never be able to pull myself out of.
She promised. Shepromised.
Headmistress Robin. I did all that shit for her so she wouldn’t reveal my identity, so why would she lie to me? What does she have to gain? Is she making me the first step toward blending the two schools, or is this all something else?
It’s always something else.
I should have learned that with Jasper, Heath, and Beck. Nothing here is ever as it seems.
Everything here is always about selfish, personal gain.
